


Holding Out For A Hero

by tiger_moran



Series: Lyric [15]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Referenced James Moriarty, Referenced Sebastian Moran/James Moriarty, Referenced Sebastian Moran/Ronald Adair, Referenced murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:14:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27506680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiger_moran/pseuds/tiger_moran
Summary: Fifteenth in a collection of standalone but also interconnected Moriarty and Moran fics inspired by lyrics from songs, particularly pop/rock songs.
Series: Lyric [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992709
Kudos: 5





	Holding Out For A Hero

**Author's Note:**

> Frou Frou – Holding Out For a Hero (original by Bonnie Tyler)
> 
> Somewhere after midnight  
> In my wildest fantasy  
> Somewhere just beyond my reach  
> There's someone reaching back for me

“Why did you kill him, Colonel?” asks Inspector Lestrade.

Moran sits on the chair in the rather austere room, hands cuffed in front of him, staring straight ahead of him.

“Just a lad,” Lestrade continues. “What can he have done to offend you so?” He inclines his head to insert himself into Moran's field of vision, and those deep-set blue eyes flick over to meet Lestrade's, which is immensely unsettling. Even now, even wearied as he seems, there is some sort of queer magnetism about Moran, some innate sense of danger radiating from him but also something about him that is terribly alluring, somehow. “Some sort of tryst gone wrong, was it?”

Moran scoffs at this.

“Come on, Colonel, we're all men of the world here.”

Moran laughs – the sound seems to come from deep within him and conveys less humour, more absolute contempt. “ _I_ am. I am not certain about you, or him.” He darts a glance towards the sergeant standing off to the side of the cheerless room.

“Ah yes, all your tiger-hunting in India,” Lestrade says. “Didn't do you much good though did it, when it came to avoiding a rather obvious trap.”

Moran's gaze does not deviate from his. “Maybe I was beyond caring whether it was a trap or not.”

Lestrade seems to ponder this briefly. “Sergeant Day,” he says after a moment, glancing over at the younger man. “Could you leave us for a few minutes?”

“Sir?” Day says, glancing from Lestrade towards Moran.

“I'll be fine alone with him,” Lestrade assures him.

“Right sir.” Day leaves, with some evident reluctance, glancing warily at Moran as he exits.

Lestrade pulls out the chair from the opposite side of the table to Moran and drags it closer so that he can sit directly before him.

Moran watches him with total indifference, as if it is of no concern at all to him whether Lestrade simply wishes to question him further or beat a confession out of him.

“Colonel Moran,” Lestrade says, “I'm not as naïve as you may think, I know what goes on between... certain men.”

Moran says nothing.

“You and Ronald Adair... perhaps there was far more to your association with him than meets the eye, hmm?”

“What exactly do you want to do, Inspector, charge me with murder, or with _buggery_?” Moran sneers. Around the inspector Moran's accent has unwittingly risen a notch or two up the social scale, as if to convey precisely what he thinks of someone like Lestrade, and he meets the Inspector's gaze for so long as he speaks the word _buggery_ that Lestrade blushes, just a little, and has to look away.

“I don't give a damn about what you get up to with any willing man behind closed doors,” he says.

“Do you not?” Moran laughs again, mirthlessly.

“It is that young man's death I care about.”

“So I should confide all in you, should I? Lay everything bare to you?” Moran sneers. He looks away again. “I didn't kill Ronald.” For a few seconds something that truly looks like sorrow flickers across his face, before it fades into stoniness again.

“You are a brilliant marksman.”

“So I am the only person in the world capable of shooting someone, am I?”

“You have no alibi for the time of his death.”

Moran narrows his eyes, giving himself a rather insolent look as he regards Lestrade again. “Don't you think, if I had killed him, I would have arranged one?”

Lestrade blinks and considers this briefly. It makes a certain amount of sense, he realises, unlike everything else. Little else seems to have any logic behind it – why that damned fool Holmes feigned his death for all that time for one thing when this man seated right in front of him still knew Holmes was alive, or why that bloody private detective is still refusing to allow them to charge Moran with his attempted murder.

He sighs. It's getting late and he's getting nowhere with this Colonel Moran, who keeps alternating between acting as if Lestrade and his sergeant aren't even there at all and as if they are no more than some lowly worms, the kind he might step on and then distastefully have to scrape off his shoe. He also has his doubts about the man's sanity – something about that look in his eyes, it unnerves Lestrade. It's as if Moran is dead on the inside, and his behaviour in the house when they arrested him... for a supposedly cold-blooded murderer he was surprisingly emotional. The wounded look on his face when he was prevented from killing Holmes was painful to see. It was not only rage, but a look of pure grief. Lestrade is starting to wonder if truly this man did not care if it was a trap or not; he seems to be someone hell-bent on self-destruction. The Inspector can only hope that before Moran destroys himself entirely he might deign to make a confession first, although that seems unlikely.

Time to put an end to this anyway, for now. Lestrade needs his sleep and Moran is clearly not going to co-operate tonight.

Lestrade stands up, taking his chair back to its rightful place before going to bang on the door to summon Sergeant Day back.

“Get him back to his cell,” he instructs. “We'll talk to him again in the morning.”

So now, late at night, in his police cell, Moran lies in the gloom, sleeping, dreaming, reaching out for something, something that exists only in his dreams but something – someone – still he can never touch, no matter how hard he tries, how far he reaches out for him. Even when this dream figure reaches back to him, trying to save him, still Moran can never quite touch him.

He jerks awake so hard he almost falls off the uncomfortable bench which passes as a bed, his hand still outstretched, still reaching for someone who is now fading even further and further out of his grasp. The sliver of light shining into his cell illuminates the two silvery wet tracks down both of his cheeks as he lifts his head off the thin pillow.

“ _Professor_ ,” he whispers, into the dark.


End file.
